This paper presents extracts from interviews with slum dwellers, primarily women, in Mumbai and Pune, and discusses the conditions they cope with every day with regard to water and sanitation, and the ways these conditions have changed over time. These women live in a variety of circumstances-on pavements, beside railway tracks, in swampy areas, on steep slopes-and this affects the particular problems they face. But in all cases, dealing with their needs for water and sanitation is a stressful and time-consuming challenge. These interviews provide the kinds of insights that rarely emerge in quantitative studies. 2. Pune, formerly called Poona, also in the state of Maharashtra, lies 200 kilometres east of Mumbai.